It's not about having a whale of a time, tourist boats need to give a wide berth
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1/27/2021 It’s not about having a whale of a time, tourist boats need to give a wide berth
SCIENCE
It’s not about having a whale of a time, tourist
boats need to give a wide berth
A study has shown whales and dolphins do not enjoy being viewed close up, hence the laws that are in
place
Claire Keeton
Senior features writer
26 January 2021 - 20:22
UP CLOSE Bottlenose dolphins approach scientists in Plettenberg Bay.
Image: Nelson Mandela University/Institute for Coastal and Marine Research
Humpback whales and dolphins are sensitive to the approaches of whale-watching boats, but most operators in
Plettenberg Bay have not been adhering fully to regulations that protect these social marine mammals, a new study
shows.
“Out of the 123 whale and dolphin encounters we observed in Plettenberg Bay from 2018 to 2020, only 11 were 100%
compliant with all the regulations governing animal encounters,” said project team member Minke Witteveen, from
Nelson Mandela University’s Institute for Coastal and Marine Research.
More than 30 permits (not all active) have been granted for boat-based whale watching in marine hotspots —
including False Bay, Hermanus, Gansbaai, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, Port Elizabeth and St Lucia — and the industry is
expanding.
In Plettenberg Bay, it contributes R371.2m per year and creates 92 jobs, said the researchers who hope to inform
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1/27/2021 It’s not about having a whale of a time, tourist boats need to give a wide berth
Nelson Mandela University marine scientist and project leader Dr Gwenith Penry said: “People come from all over
the world to experience SA’s bottlenose, common and humpback dolphins, and the southern right, humpback and
Bryde’s whales, to name a few.”
MARINE MAGIC A southern right whale breaching.
Image: Raggy Charters/Lloyd Edwards
“Using Plettenberg Bay for our case study, we looked at key areas the cetaceans (dolphins and whales) use in the bay.
Where they rest, feed and socialise, and where the whale watching boats overlap in these areas.
“If there are too many operators in one area, or if they do not comply with the encounter guidelines, the animals get
stressed and may even leave the bay,” said Penry, a Bryde’s whale researcher.
“We therefore set out to determine what type of approach and encounter disturbs the animals the least, and have
these ndings implemented as part of permit restrictions.”
The study was conducted in Plettenberg Bay because it is a global marine biodiversity hotspot on the Garden Route,
and attracts high numbers of whales and dolphins.
Penry said: “On their annual migration to the southern ocean waters, humpback and southern right whales shelter,
rest and nurse their young in Plettenberg Bay and along the southeast coast.”
She said approaching too close to the cetaceans affected their behaviour.
“If operators speed towards the animals, they tend to take a long, deep dive or change direction, or the pod might
split off into smaller groups. This is highly disruptive as they could be socialising, heading towards a
feeding ground or nursing their young,” said Penry.
“In one of our experimental encounters, we spent 15 minutes, 300m away from a mother-calf humpback whale pair,
and they were very relaxed. The calf was playing around, breaching and tail slapping.
“But when we slowly moved in, the mother-calf pair immediately reacted; they dived down and disappeared. This
was not an isolated event and we saw this happening on both slow and fast approaches. Dolphin pods often reacted
similarly.”
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1/27/2021 It’s not about having a whale of a time, tourist boats need to give a wide berth
TAIL WIND A southern right whale tail.
Image: Dr Gwen Penry
Boat operators are required to keep 25m from common and bottlenose dolphins, 50m from whales and humpback
dolphins and 300m from whale cow-calf pairs. They may remain no longer than 20 minutes.
Penry said it was important the animals initiate and control the interactions, not the operators. Dolphins and whales
are top predators in the marine food chain.
“We are often asked whether these restrictions apply when swimming with whales and dolphins but in SA this is
illegal, for the safety of both the humans and the animals,” Penry said.
Before the pandemic, foreign visitors contributed to 85% of marine tourism, “mainly from Germany and the
Netherlands, followed by the UK, Israel, Belgium, Switzerland and the US”, the study found.
The chance to watch whales, dolphins and seals in the ocean attracted nearly half of them (49%) to Plettenberg Bay.
Caitlin Judge, rst author of an article about transparency and advertising in the industry, said operators should be
encouraged to be honest in their website marketing — and to win tourists over to be champions of permit adherence
and responsible tourism.
“Captions of close-up photographs of cetaceans, for example, need to explain honestly how far the operator is
required by law to be from the animal,” said Judge, whose ndings were published in the Journal of Sustainable
Tourism.
“So many tourists are detached from the natural world; most of what they experience is on TV or the internet and
they expect the wildlife documentary version experience.”
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1/27/2021 It’s not about having a whale of a time, tourist boats need to give a wide berth
IN FLIGHT Common dolphins in Algoa Bay.
Image: Raggy Charters/Lloyd Edwards
Environmental scientist Jonathan Kingwill, of Bluepebble Sustainability Solutions, led the economic assessment of
whale and dolphin tourism in Plettenberg Bay.
The three biggest operators in Plett, who run 85% of the sector — which has an annual occupancy of about 50% —
got 359 tourists to complete questionnaires from March 2019 to March 2020 for this research.
“The direct expenditure from boat-based tourism alone for the year was R143.3m, most of it related to tour
packages. The indirect expenditure in the service industry (such as fuel, boat repairs and other costs to service this
tourism market) is R156.2m,” said Kingwill.
Those working in this tourism sector, or related to it, bene t from R71.7m of spending and the overall total of R371.1m
amounts to 6% of the total tourism spend in Plettenberg Bay.
The operators also contribute more than R500,000 to community projects including a day care centre, a feeding
project for young children and a special-needs centre.
This is the rst research in SA to assess the socio-economic and conservation effects of boat-based whale watching
tourism and it is part of a Sustainable Marine Tourism Project.
The Nature’s Valley Trust and Nelson Mandela University conducted the project, funded by the WWF Nedbank
Green Trust, from January 2018 to December 2020.
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